given
some trouble to more than one duke and peer. In another direction, his
maternal uncle, Monsieur de Torigny, before being named chevalier of the
order in the promotion of 1694, had confessed, in order to get his
sixteen quarterings recognized, that the best part of his scutcheon was
that of the D'Harmentals, with whom his ancestors had been allied for
three hundred years. Here, then, was enough to satisfy the aristocratic
demands of the age of which we write.

The chevalier was neither poor nor rich--that is to say, his father,
when he died, had left him an estate in the environs of Nevers, which
brought him in from 20,000 to 25,000 livres a year. This was enough to
live well in the country, but the chevalier had received an excellent
education, and was very ambitious; therefore he had at his majority, in
1711, quitted his home for Paris. His first visit was to the Comte de
Torigny, on whom he counted to introduce him at court. Unfortunately, at
that time the Comte de Torigny was absent from home; but as he
remembered with pleasure the family of D'Harmental, he recommended his
nephew to the Chevalier de Villarceaux, who could refuse nothing to his
friend the Comte de Torigny, and took the young man to Madame de
Maintenon.

Madame de Maintenon had one good quality--she always continued to be the
friend of her old lovers. She received the Chevalier d'Harmental
graciously, thanks to the old recollections which recommended him to
her, and some days afterward, the Marechal de Villars coming to pay his
court to her, she spoke a few such pressing words in favor of her young
protege, that the marechal, delighted to find an opportunity of obliging
this queen "in partibus," replied that from that hour he attached the
chevalier to his military establishment and would take care to offer
him every occasion to justify his august protectress's good opinion of
him.

It was a great joy to the chevalier to see such a door opened to him.
The coming campaign was definitive. Louis XIV. had arrived at the last
period of his reign--the period of reverses. Tallard and Marsin had been
beaten at Hochstett, Villeroy at Ramilies, and Villars himself, the hero
of Friedlingen, had lost the famous battle of Malplaquet against
Marlborough and Eugene. Europe, kept down for a time by Colbert and
Louvois, rose against France, and the situation of affairs was
desperate.

The king, like a despairing invalid who changes his doctor every hour,
ch